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Comment by mquander | Hacker News Reader

Apparently in the writer's world, people who make things are "lazy...mindless...procrastinators." On the other hand, people who sell things that have already been made are "thinking, and doing hard work in areas [they] barely understand. It's real work compared to programming."

Pure troll.

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No, he's talking about programmers who want to sell software without spending time on marketing it to their potential customers. Unless you've got an incredible product you'll have to get off your ass at some point and actively try to sell it. That's where the procrastination part pops up and I've been guilty of this myself.

But if it's procrastination because I'm trying to avoid it (because I'm not good at it), isn't that the perfect opportunity to bring in the "marketing guy/gal" cofounder to do that work for me? Ideally, you would then only have to actively "sell" it to one person who can pass it on to the rest.

What's being called procrastination here, I'd prefer to call specialization. But I'm probably being naive about this.

How can you tell if your marketing guy is any good if you don't spend some time at it yourself? You know your own product better than anyone else. If you're passionate about the problem you're solving then start telling people who are experiencing that problem.

Sure, as long as you get off your ass and find a good marketing person. And then you work as hard as you can to support them.

I think many people at this point probably go "yes, marketing person, problem solved" but don't put the time into getting a decent co-founder to help them.

Dude, he speaks the truth. People do what they are most comfortable with and have a large blind-spot for things they ought to be doing but keep putting off. The tone of the article doesn't seem biased or inflammatory to me.

People who do business try to do the marketing without building a product; people who build software try to build the product without doing any marketing. His point is that neither type will get anywhere.

I believe the author is a programmer who makes his own software. So, he's making and selling his own work. Not a troll.

Yes, he is. He is the author of the "I made 20k in a month" post of some time ago. Just to put him in context.

The approach he advocates is basically to "shotgun" projects and make a little bit off each one:

http://blog.cubeofm.com/how-to-become-rich-even-if-nobody-is...

...which was widely criticized as advocating spam:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1112043

Just to put him in more context.

"Pure troll" was the signature? Because it is a controversial post, designed to inflame spirits, add little to the discussion and very close to and ad hominem.

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